Could the Oak Island Money Pit be the Retrieval Pit?

originally posted by: caterpillage
In your theory then the shaft below the treasure would have been left open then with a ten foot cap of un disturbed dirt on top? If I understand right. If so, wasn't it dug down as far as around a hundred feet and found to be dirt, timber, dirt, timber all the way down?

Yes, by digging up they would be hoisting whatever they were going to deposit near the surface. You would need safety platforms and cribbing to prevent a massive cave in on all the workers in there. Probably going up 10 to 12 feet at a time dumping excavated dirt on a platform built lower, build another platform.... There must have been an excavated area on the side of the platforms for men to move up and down, perhaps ladder and pulley shaft. It probably had some crude cribbing that either caved in over time, or the first treasure hunters never dug wider than the platforms that may have exposed it.

So much damage was done by the first to remove the platforms, it will always be a mystery as to what it really looked like. They probably sawed the logs off as they were embedded in the surrounding earth, rather than excavate wide enough to expose the entire logs. There is no real good account of how they removed them.

a reply to: charlyv

My initial question would be this: If they built the platforms as they dug up from beneath, where would they put all of the removed earth after a platform was built?

Sure, I guess that they could have left a few planks out of each platform in order to do the debris removal, but honestly, this seems like an unlikely--although quite interesting--theory to it all.

But I guess that if the treasure is important enough, no amount of work is too much to hide it...

EDIT: I understand that the claim is that it was a repeating pattern of fill dirt, timbers, dirt, timbers, dirt, timbers...but isn't that just what was claimed by the original (McGinnis) and subsequent Onslow Company excavations? Do we have and empirical evidence that these claims are true? I'm thinking not, since that whole area was destroyed by the Restall family. So, basically, the timbers and the pit are pretty much mythical at this point, right? So, sadly, this discussion is moot, but interesting nonetheless.

a reply to: charlyv

So what you're saying is that Indy went the hardest way possible to retrieve the grail, and there should have been a hidden door in the grail chamber through which he could have escaped or originally entered?

Your story from the beginning is flawed. As no Oak trees grow on that Island. The stuff hanging off the so called oak tree in your story can not be possible.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

My initial question would be this: If they built the platforms as they dug up from beneath, where would they put all of the removed earth after a platform was built?

I was thinking that they probably started with a 2 platform headroom. Starting at the bottom of the vertical shaft, the initial 20 or so feet of debris would have been moved out through the swamp tunnel. The cribbing would start and then by maintaining that excavation, it could move up and then the debris would be moved down to the next lower platform without any more debris being moved out of the structure. There had to be a side area where the men could move, deposit debris below and haul the treasure to the next level up. Conjecture, but probably feasible.

As you pointed out, so much original information is lost so we can only try and figure out how it could have been possible.

originally posted by: SLEALWAYS
Your story from the beginning is flawed. As no Oak trees grow on that Island. The stuff hanging off the so called oak tree in your story can not be possible.

The island was originally covered in old, tall and straight Oak trees, like most of the other land around there. In fact, during the British occupation, all of the tall oaks were sequestered and then removed by the Brits for ship masting. Historical fact. No private person was allowed to touch them.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: charlyv

So what you're saying is that Indy went the hardest way possible to retrieve the grail, and there should have been a hidden door in the grail chamber through which he could have escaped or originally entered?

Perhaps!
Check out that book that I linked in an above post. It is absolutely amazing how ingenious some people were back then when it came to hiding things.

The more I think about it the more I like your theory really. It does explain the presence of the timbers every 10 feet. And it would certainly make for the most descreet hiding situation. What a massive endeavor it would have been though. Though digging down a hundred feet would be no easy task either I guess, and both would seem quite dangerous!

It's a damn shame it wasn't discover in more recent times by people who would have excavated it more carefully

a reply to: charlyv

Yeah, I already looked at it...some decent prices on used ones offered through Amazon. I may see if it's at my library.

originally posted by: SLEALWAYS
Your story from the beginning is flawed. As no Oak trees grow on that Island. The stuff hanging off the so called oak tree in your story can not be possible.

They may not grow there now, but it's obvious that your knowledge of the history of that island is flawed. Video is only embedded to give you knowledge of the oak trees that existed there...the rest of the proposed theories are neat, but not my point.

originally posted by: SLEALWAYS
Your story from the beginning is flawed. As no Oak trees grow on that Island. The stuff hanging off the so called oak tree in your story can not be possible.

Excuse me, but do you have a point? That is the second time you have said my information is flawed without foundation. I see you are new to ATS, so please learn a bit of board etiquette.

I used to live up there and history is one of my specialties, so if you have a problem with anything here, you may choose to contribute or drop a query on the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society.

a reply to: charlyv

Nevermind...I think I got notified of this response, but it wasn't directed at me.

It would appear that SLEALWAYS is just trolling to troll. Maybe that appearance is deceiving, but I highly doubt it.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Yea, sorry. It was certainly not directed at you, but somehow my response got directed to you. I tried to fix it but it would not let me edit the post.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
So what you're saying is that Indy went the hardest way possible to retrieve the grail, and there should have been a hidden door in the grail chamber through which he could have escaped or originally entered?

Sure. The idea is, if you're going to eventually come back and get the stuff you buried, why would you booby trap it against yourself? It would be smarter to do a little sleight-of-hand and make the looters think you buried it one place when you actually buried it in another that's much easier to get to.

So.... there's no treasure on Oak Island at all, but rather on shore or another nearby island. That is, if it wasn't already retrieved long, long ago, leaving fools to dig in an empty hole for 200 years.

Well I was wrong about one aspect. They brought the sword into the show. I thought it would at least stay out until it was authenticated. Later events, obviously later than when this was included in the show, have not been to kind to the sword story. I wonder how it will be handled from here.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Sure. The idea is, if you're going to eventually come back and get the stuff you buried, why would you booby trap it against yourself? It would be smarter to do a little sleight-of-hand and make the looters think you buried it one place when you actually buried it in another that's much easier to get to.

So.... there's no treasure on Oak Island at all, but rather on shore or another nearby island. That is, if it wasn't already retrieved long, long ago, leaving fools to dig in an empty hole for 200 years.

This, of course, is assuming that there ever was any treasure to begin with. Personally, I think there was SOMETHING valuable to SOMEONE--a hoax of this magnitude seems pointless and a waste of time--but who knows what it was, because there are no tangible clues at this point as to what was buried, just that something may have been/is because there appears to be artificial chambers and tunnels and booby traps.

I'm with most on this thread--I would love to see this mystery solved, but I get the feeling that unless what is/was buried is a holographic road map to Atlantis put there by Ancient Aliens and unable to be activated until the antichrist is revealed by Michael Jackson's ghost, many won't accept that the mystery has been solved. It's existed so long that, unless it's a fantastic discovery, the search will continue and theories will multiply.

I can't help but feel like, in the end, this will be a dog chasing its own tail, but when it discovers it is its tail and nothing more, it won't be enough to satisfy the dog.

Your theory does sound somewhat plausible. I could actually see that being the case. Would be a shame if it were true, though.

In that case, what's your opinion on the scrap of parchment paper and gold chain link that were recovered from the drill bit? And what of the reports of striking some kind of cement-covered vault, along with the reports of the drill striking a second impenetrable object some feet below the 'vault'. Do you dismiss those as stories without merit? I wonder how they would tie into your theory of the treasure having been buried a mere ten or so feet below the surface of the money pit.

originally posted by: Charizard
Do you dismiss those as stories without merit?

The only thing you can be sure of is that a lot of people dug up a lot of dirt and that there are some carved stones in the area. Gold chain? Parchment? Coded tablet? Okay, where are they? Where is the analysis of them?

I can't see putting a lot of faith in stories told by a lot of most likely super paranoid obsessive treasure hunters.

a reply to: Charizard

I don't dismiss them, I just cannot see them, and either can any one else.
I also really want there to be a treasure there, but the evidence presently points the other way unless there is a breakthrough to put it back on track. I really do hope they find something.

a reply to: Blue Shift

In the latest episode of Curse of Oak Island, they had an after-episode series where they interviewed the brothers and Dave Blankenship, asking them about various theories, discoveries and upcoming things in the show. The piece of parchment paper was brought up and the brothers jokingly mentioned that they thought they had lost it but they do have it and have already had some tests done to try to determine it's date. They said they plan on having the ink tested next. I guess we'll see how that goes, or not.

What I find most interesting is the cavern at the bottom of the 10x hole. The sonar images clearly showed what looks to be a box of some sort, a vertical, square beam extending to the ceiling and what really looks like a corpse. They actually got an ROV down there, but conveniently? didn't seem to bother looking at the floor where the supposed chest and body are lying, and somehow couldn't find the 'beam'. I feel like they may have actually found something but they're just holding out on revealing it for now to keep the show going.

Either way, on that after show special I mentioned, the brothers confirmed that they WOULD have a diver in the bottom of 10x sometime during this season, so I'm cautiously being excited about that and hoping they don't pull a typical "oh no blinding silt can't see anything gotta pull out and never try again" type of situation.